I'd also like to second (or third) The Demon Haunted World also by Carl Sagan. I read both of these books over the course of two nights, one right after the other. I enjoyed these books tremendously and highly recommend them to laypersons of all scientific persuasions.

Maybe an odd choice, but I got a lot out of The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami. It's a bit out there on the edge of Quantum physics, where it can evaporate into philosophy. Or maybe it's a philosophy text that takes Quantum physics and Mind/brain theory seriously. But it's a good book.

Likely some of you have experienced that somewhat exasperated look that strikes the face of your friend or loved one when you try to talk physics. Or maybe I have just been unlucky to have not met many others who get so excited about an electron being everywhere at once. I have just joined this forum -- I can't believe what I have been missing!
On to books: I agree! Fabric of the Cosmos is lovely! Brian Greene has a wonderful way of dealing with those inevitable first few chapters of a pop-sci book that reiterate the basics. He manages to explain relativity in such fun ways.
Roger Penrose's Emperor's New Mind is truly remarkable. His thoughts on AI are increasingly relevant.
And of course, The Physics of Star Trek! I laughed reading this book, as Krauss alternately praised and and poked fun at the show that first got me interested in physics as a child.
And lastly, although it doesn't technically qualify as sci-tech literature, Einstein's Dreams. In my opinion, the loveliest book ever written, connecting art and science in a n alomost painfully beautiful way. It doesn't teach anything new about theory, but it certainly makes you wonder about the actual nature of time and the universe and how our existence has been shaped.

thestrangequark said:
Likely some of you have experienced that somewhat exasperated look that strikes the face of your friend or loved one when you try to talk physics. Or maybe I have just been unlucky to have not met many others who get so excited about an electron being everywhere at once. I have just joined this forum -- I can't believe what I have been missing!

Click to expand...

Yes, I've experienced that look many times, although right now I'm lucky enough to be living in a town with lots of science geeks around...

I just got started on The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, a biography of Paul Erdos. Most non-mathematicians won't know the name, but he had a reputation as one of the most eccentric (and most brilliant) mathematicians ever. He didn't even have a home; he would show up at another mathematician's house, unannounced, and say, "My brain is open," and just walk in and ... take root there. And since the host inevitably got his name as a collaborator on a brilliant paper, no one minded too much.

If you feel you want something like A Brief History, but more mathsy (if you can cope with maths up to degree level, or early degree level, and can remember it all. He starts out quite benignly), I could recommend The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose.

It's a thick volume that's quite heavy going in the later chapters. If you understand it all completely you should probably think about getting tenure as a Physics Professor. However, if you're looking for more of a challenge than Brief History, it's a good read...

But if you do get though it, you'll have a much more profound understanding of modern thinking on the universe than BHOT or a book written in Layman's English could ever supply.

Another suggestion for people who are interested in the nature of computing, information theory, and some of the more obscure parts of mathematics... Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Doug Hofstadter is an excellent, intriguing page-turner. It's a bit out-of-date (predicting that a computer will never beat a human at Chess!), but nonetheless, well worth a read in paperback form...

Please allow me to jump in on the Sagan-wagon, since most of his endeavors were the most accessible and thought-provoking works of “popular science”, but I would like to suggest two of his works that have not been mentioned yet: Pale Blue Dot – A Vision of the Human Future in Space, and Dragons of Eden.

In addition, some of the others that come to mind:

The Panda's Thumb – More Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould